Chiral Disorder and Diffusion in The QCD Vacuum

TL;DR

This paper explores how spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in QCD leads to diffusing light quarks, drawing an analogy to electron diffusion in disordered metals, and provides insights into the vacuum's bulk properties.

Contribution

It introduces a novel perspective on chiral quark diffusion in the QCD vacuum, linking it to concepts from condensed matter physics.

Findings

Diffusing quarks in the QCD vacuum with a specific diffusion constant.

Chiral symmetry breaking results in quark diffusion analogous to electrons in disordered metals.

Provides a quantitative estimate of the vacuum diffusion constant.

Abstract

In this talk, which popularizes some of our recent work, we provide novel insights into the bulk properties of light chiral quarks in a fixed Euclidean volume (e.g. lattice QCD). We show that the spontaneous breakdown of chiral symmetry results into diffusing quarks with a vacuum diffusion constant $D=2F_{\pi}^2/|<\bar{q}q>|$ $\approx 0.22$ fm, in striking analogy to diffusing electrons in disordered metals in one-, two- and three-dimensions.